The kingdom of God is full of Mysteries. God created man and wanted to keep all knowledge about the Mysteries of His universe hidden from his eyes. In disobedience to the will of God, man, the supreme creation of God, made an attempt with the advice of his female mate, to pry into the secrets of Creation. According to the Biblical legend, this first disobedience of man, arising out of his curiosity to know what the Mighty Creator kept concealed from his eyes, was the cause of his fall which brought for him an eternal trouble in place of an eternal joy, an everlasting curse encased with boundless sorrows and sufferings in place of perpetual fountain of celestial bliss.
Man gained only a small particle of knowledge at the sacrifice of his right to live with God and to move with Him. In other words he lost his advantage of living and moving in association with the Eternal Being Who desired to give him protection from all harm of earthly life. This fall of mankind has brought all the miseries of human life. Knowledge is good, knowledge is power, but Carlyle says knowledge is a curse and ignorance is a bliss. Carlyle is right. The Bible proves it beyond all doubt.
The very possession of knowledge about the Divine Creation brought man on the verge of ruin, on the very border of Hell filled with liquid fire boiling with eternal rage and bright red anger. So long man was ignorant, all happiness was at his door, life was a joy, and world was a beauty to him. With his fall he lost the sacred innocence of life and he inoculated his life with the virus of evil thinking and evil doing. He abandoned virtue and courted vice.
A life of purity was plunged into the hell of impurity. He fell into an unimaginable depth of moral and physical suffering. It is a great and most deplorable fall for the sake of which all future generations of mankind are in everlasting unrest of mind.
This fall of mankind heralded the modern civilization. Man wanted clothes, clothes to hide his shame of guilts. Then he wanted various kinds of food, the food was his ever increasing desire to satisfy his endless wants which multiplied by leaps and bounds. The unsatisfied desires made his life unhappy and foolish abandonment of Nature made his body ill with many diseases which could never come near him while he was in a state of Nature. The first fall of man is the first dawn of civilization which is the mother of diseases. “Civilization is a disease.”
Thus mans search for knowledge, for the hidden facts of Nature, for the things which are unknown to him, has become the cause of his endless trouble. But still he continues his search with indomitable will. His ceaseless search for hidden knowledge, his constant labour for unveiling the Mysteries of Creation continues with unabated zeal and craving. He says science is his God and science will unlock the hidden powers of Nature. Hence he worships his science God with rapt attention. To all superficial thinkers science has made an immense progress for the betterment of economic conditions of man.
H.G. Wells says, time will come when we will live in the air and work in the air and will come down to earth only on Sundays for recreation! Seeing the rate of progress of science one can easily comprehend that the prediction of H.G. Wells will come true one day. But all these remarkable achievements of science have failed to give man that very life of joy and innocence which he enjoyed before his fall. The progress that cannot make life joyful and peaceful is no progress. The medical science, they say, has made an unprecedented progress but unfortunately the number of diseases are steadily on the increase and death rate also has awfully increased.
The introduction of Penicillin and sulpha drugs is no insurance for human health or no guaranty for immunity from diseases. Our daily experience tells us that the modern medical science with improved drug equipment and knowledge of bacteriology has not performed any miracle which is always promises to do. Advancement of knowledge and progress of science are needed for the enhancement of human health and happiness. But neither health nor happiness is secure in the present world. Disease and poverty have made life intolerable inspite of the progress of civilization and science.
Sixty years ago, if we wish to tell the truth, people were happier and more healthy, they enjoyed greater wealth and greater immunity from diseases. Most of the diseases which we suffer from in these days, were unknown or less known to our forefathers. In those days when science made no galloping progress, an old man of 90 could read his Ramayana or Mahabharata without the help of eye glasses, he could chew his food without artificial teeth. Science has no doubt conquered Time and Space but it has entirely failed to increase human health and happiness. With progress of science we discard old ideas and habits and cling to new ones.
Knowledge of Hygiene and a host of new drugs have failed to conquer death and disease. The modern drugs are employed to cure or to palliate or to prevent diseases but no one can say how far they are successful in these directions. Moreover it is the general impression that the very employment of these poisonous drugs created hundred other diseases of unknown names or reexcite old diseases which remained inactive in the body for years. Our future generations will judge how far our assertions regarding progress of science, medical or otherwise, are true.
Further progress of science will cause further increase of death rate and unhappiness because it draws us farther and farther from natural environments to artificial ones. The whole man is gradually becoming artificial with artificial diet and artificial habits, and forgetting all contacts with Nature which can pour on his head abundant stream of true joy and happiness. The situation the modern science is creating is very terrible and it will one day, rain death and disease which will devastate the fair earth which God created for human dwelling.
The creation of Atom Bomb is not the last thing that science has done. It will create more deadly poisons and more deadly weapons which will bring a dreadful state in which the whole creation of God will perish in a moment. Violent poisons which are employed for the protection of human life will one day be the cause of death by their continued employment and reckless use. Caution and care are needed for the use of these poisons which no doubt can save lives when handled by men of wisdom and experience.
The modern medicine or the modern scientific knowledge has become a curse and not a blessing for human beings. The fruit of knowledge contains in it poison which can annihilate life. Throw this fruit away or the world is doomed. A giant was sealed in a copper vase which lay at the bottom of the sea. A fishermans net brought the vase on the ground. The fisherman thought that his luck favoured him and the pitcher might contain hidden gold. He removed the seal and a thick smoke came out of the vase. Gradually the smoke took the shape of a large giant which wanted to kill the fisherman who released him from the copper vase.
The fisherman was in danger and his wit saved his life. He at once said “Sir, kill me if you like but tell me how this big body of yours remained in this small vase.” The giant at once re – entered the vase to satisfy the curiosity of the fisherman who took no time to seal the vase and to throw it into the sea for the protection of his life. Hence the fruit of knowledge should be thrown away for the safety of the universe. The search for the hidden forces of Nature is dangerous. Release of the hidden powers of Nature will only ruin the earth. The ambition for possession of knowledge of the unknown is to be abandoned.
“Ambition is a fire” from which we must keep away. A bell was tied to the tail of a bull and when the bull moved its tail the bell made a sound which terrified the beast that began to run in fear. The more it ran the greater was the sound of the bell. The beast continued to run and at last fell down dead. Therefore the ambition for the search of the unknown is associated with the danger of destruction. The sound of the bell in the example cited above is taken for ambition which allows no rest and ends life in death. The secret powers of Nature when fully released may cause total annihilation of all that we possess.
The distant past was a golden age when people enjoyed long and healthful life, when the land was flowing with milk and honey which made no necessity for taking medicine daily like our daily bread. The present deterioration of our National health is due to our daily or frequent use of poisonous drugs, extreme poverty, constant anxieties and worries of life arising out of a situation created by the modern civilization which is the product of scientific knowledge that constantly knocks at the door of Nature for the release of Her unknown and most powerful forces which man wants to tame and employ in his own service.
Calcutta